Rachel's Blue

by Zakes Mda

  Rachel approaches the guitar with some trepidation.

  “Come on, dude,” says Rain. “Just play the darn thing. Make it squeal for its mama.”

  Rain reminds her so much of Schuyler. They called each other dude when they were happy or being naughty about something.

  Rachel plays. Rain is wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the sophisticated way Rachel picks the notes and arpeggiates the chords. Rachel sings Shady Grove, my little love and Rain harmonises in the chorus. It goes so well, as if they had rehearsed together, that they both break out laughing.

  “Your voice is very nasally,” says Rain.

  “You and your brother have a way of insulting me,” says Rachel, laughing nevertheless. “He once said my voice was whiny.”

  “He knows nothing what whiny means. It’s nasally, that’s what we call it. It can be annoying to some listeners. Some singers even try to correct it with surgery.”

  Rachel could easily have been irritated by this discussion. But she finds Rain’s guileless frankness refreshing. Rain tells Rachel that she thinks it is silly to try to change the voice through surgery. There is no need for voice coaches and speech pathologists either. She can use her voice to full effect as it is, as long as she uses a lot of comedy in her material. The voice lends itself well to comedy. It becomes part of the comic effect.

  “Next time I’ve a gig worth my while I’ll invite you over,” says Rain. “We’ll play together. It’ll only take a few hours of rehearsal before the show for us to gel.”

  As she watches Rain drive away in her brown and white Volkswagen Beetle convertible, Rachel smiles and waves her goodbye with her guitar. Then she sits on the deck and plays and sings, defiantly making her voice even more nasally.

  When Nana Moira returns home with Blue in the evening Rachel is still playing her guitar.

  Blue spends a lot of time with Nana Moira at the Centre. She insists on taking him with her because, as she told Rachel once, “This young-un remembers me of you when you was his age.” Rachel used to spend her days playing under the tables or on the porch and being spoilt by the Quilting Circle women with cookies and other goodies. It is now Blue’s turn.

  Before Rain came Rachel and Nana Moira would fight over Blue. Nana Moira wanted to go with him to the Centre; Rachel wanted to play with him at home. But since the green guitar Rachel is happy that she is able to practise and write new songs while Blue plays away at the Centre.

  She never used to write songs before but sang the standard folk songs that everyone from the hills knew. But now she is taking Rain’s advice to heart: she has to come up with humorous material. Sometimes it’s just her own funny words in old tunes, but once in a while she comes up with an original ditty.

  What she doesn’t know as she strums her guitar is that Genesis has taken to visiting the Centre at any odd moment just to see Blue. Nana Moira lets the two boys, as she calls them, play together on the porch or behind the building where Jason’s compost lies abandoned and the wood that he split is still in a high pile. Nana Moira is pleased that Genesis is establishing some form of relationship with his grandson. A boy child needs a man in his life, and what better man could one wish for as a role model than the upstanding Genesis?

  These surreptitious visits have earned Genesis brownie points from the women of the Quilting Circle. He is a wonderful man who will not shirk his responsibility, they say. The visits have also earned Rachel more of the women’s rancour. She is a heartless woman who has sent a good man away and now refuses the man’s own flesh and blood to have anything to do with the man’s father. She gives all women a bad name, they whisper out of range of Nana Moira’s hearing, and it is a good thing that she hasn’t set foot in the Centre for years now.

  Genesis does not tell Nana Moira that he has consulted lawyers; he wants to have official visitation rights. He wants Revelation Junior, as he calls him, to spend some weekends with him at his house breathing the clean fresh air and eating the wholesome vegetables that are cooked immediately they leave the soil.

  Genesis instructed his lawyer, who happens to be the same Mr Troy that Schuyler worked for, to initiate court process for him and his wife to be granted visitation rights as grandparents. Troy advised him it would be a waste of money and effort because he didn’t envisage winning that case. Yes, he could easily win a case for Jason’s visitation rights as the natural father. But there is no pre-existing relationship between Genesis and the grandson, no bond of any kind exists between them, and therefore it would be impossible for Troy to argue in any Ohio court that visitation would be in the interests of the grandchild.

  Could it be that Genesis is now trying to establish that bond?

  On one of his visits Genesis is sitting on the car seat on the porch with Blue on his lap. Nana Moira joins them with a bowl of mixed nuts. She passes it to Genesis who takes a few, throws one up and catches it with his mouth. He repeats the trick a number of times. Blue finds this very funny and laughs. He tries it too, but can’t catch the nuts. Genesis shows him how to do it, and in one instance Blue manages to catch the nut. This is a source of laughter and high-fives.

  “You can see he’s a De Klerk through and through,” says Genesis.

  “Strange way of telling a De Klerk with catching nuts,” says Nana Moira.

  “He’s gonna take the De Klerk name one day,” says Genesis urgently. “He’s gonna be Revelation de Klerk Junior. It’s only natural.”

  “Well, he’s registered as Blue Boucher on the birth certificate,” says Nana Moira. “It’s his mama’s decision. Me and you don’t have nothing to do with it.”

  “I gotta talk to Rachel,” says Genesis. “She’s gotta let this kid visit, even if it’s just one weekend a month. The kid gotta run wild and free on the farm like his daddy used to. You gotta do something about this, Nana Moira.”

  Nana Moira tells him she has tried to talk sense into Rachel’s head but she won’t budge.

  “Why she’s got such a downright cranky disposition?” asks Genesis in frustration.

  “You’d be cranky too if you was raped,” says Nana Moira.

  Genesis is taken aback. Nana Moira has surprised even herself with that statement.

  “Now don’t tell me you also believe that cockamamie bullshit that my boy raped her,” says Genesis, putting Blue on the seat and standing up to face down on Nana Moira.

  Nana Moira does not respond. She would rather not discuss Rachel. She knows about that “disposition”. She has to deal with it every day. She also knows that in the last three years she has seen her granddaughter open up and bloom in a manner she had never witnessed before, even prior to the rape. Yes, she now does believe she was raped. Perhaps this counselling thing helps. Nana Moira never thought it would. She never believed there was any treatment for any ailment that could work without medicine or some kind of pill or injection. But Rachel has been going to the Tri-County Mental Health Services at least twice a month and all she does there is sit down with a counsellor and talk. Just that. To Nana Moira’s amazement it has brought a lot of improvement in her temperament. That, and lately a woman called Rain, who has brought music back into her life.

  Nana Moira does not tell Genesis any of these things. She just sits there ruminating. She recalls how, one time, Rachel’s counsellor invited her for a session or two, with Rachel’s permission. The woman made her feel so much at home that she found herself revealing a family secret she never ever mentioned to anybody. Stuff – and that’s what she keeps on calling the secret – that she saw happening when Rachel was a toddler. The disclosure came after she told the counsellor that Rachel was a strange child even as she was growing up. The counsellor probed more to find out why Nana Moira felt that way. Nana Moira felt safe and trusting, so she talked. Hesitantly at first, but the “stuff” came out.

  The “stuff” confirmed what the counsellor suspected all along, that Rachel’s problem was more than the chronic PTSD or a rape-trauma syndrome as a result of the rape. She had suspected that R
achel was already vulnerable when she was raped by Jason. The counsellor could identify signs of delayed-onset PTSD, and Nana Moira’s story about “stuff” confirmed her suspicions.

  Nana Moira remembers how the counsellor begged her to let Rachel know about the “stuff” because that would help in her healing, but Nana Moira said it would never be from her lips. She could not bear the shame. They left it at that. Well, Nana Moira left it at that, the counsellor didn’t. Once in a while she phones her and after some small talk asks if she hasn’t changed her mind yet about letting Rachel into the secret.

  Not only did those two sessions with the counsellor make her reveal a family secret, they convinced her that her granddaughter was indeed raped by Jason.

  “Never seen you at a loss for words, Nana Moira,” says Genesis.

  “Me at a loss for words? Sweet grief! No, siree!” she says, and nothing further. She is at a loss for words.

  Genesis can only shake his head and leave. For a while Nana Moira remains sitting on the car seat with Blue next to her. Blue looks at her as if to figure out why she is different today, why she is not up and about talking and yelling and joking and cackling with laughter. Then he also leaves her sitting there and goes to play with his toy truck under the quilting table.

  Back at the double-wide Rachel is sitting on the deck playing the guitar and writing lyrics in a notebook. She hears the roar of a motorcycle. It is Skye. He looks quite different from the way he used to. He’s still scrawny in his tight blue jeans and black leather jacket, but his features have hardened and he sports a lush handlebar moustache. His pate is getting bald.

  Rachel knew that he must have got her address from Rain. He had only gone as far as the Centre before. He is calling her name as he alights from the bike and rushes to the deck.

  “You look gorgeous, babe,” he says, and reaches for her to kiss her.

  Sudden images of Jason on top of her flood her mind and she pushes Skye away. She screams that he must not touch her, and she runs into the house, leaving her guitar and lyrics on the floor. Skye runs after her, pleading with her to listen to what he has to say. She locks herself in her room. Skye knocks on the door calling her name, but she won’t come out. He gives up.

  She hears the bike roar away, but waits for a few more minutes to make sure he’s gone. Then she calls Nana Moira. “Please, Nana Moira, I want Blue.”

  “I’m working, Rachel,” says Nana Moira. She is not really working. She is still sitting on the car seat on the porch, brooding.

  “I want Blue now!” Rachel screams. She is frantic.

  “Come and get him.”

  “You know I can’t come over there, Nana Moira. Please bring my Blue to me.” She is now sobbing.

  She sinks to the floor and wraps her arms around her knees.

  Nana Moira brings Blue, and doesn’t return to the Centre. Rachel has not been in this state in the years that she has been going through counselling. Nana Moira is afraid she may be relapsing.

  “What happened, Rachel?”

  She won’t say.

  Later that night Rachel calls Rain: “Tell your brother never to come to my house again.”

  She doesn’t care if that jeopardises her new relationship with Rain. At the same time she is embarrassed at the way she reacted to Skye Riley. Yes, she does not want to have anything to do with him, but the way she got hysterical was uncalled for. She should have remained composed and told him calmly that whatever existed between them almost four years ago was now history. She can’t trust herself any more. She thought she was healed. She thought she had gained enough self-confidence to face the past squarely, turn her back on it, and then move on to the future. Over the years she found comfort in her counsellor who started her with what she called exposure therapy, equipping her with coping skills, with ways of reducing her anxieties. She thought she had finally disconnected from the trauma and had instead reconnected with the world out there. She even refused when another counsellor recommended hypnosis as a treatment medium; she felt that on her own and with the support of Nana Moira and Schuyler she could finally manage her intense emotions. She should have known better; the fact that she has not gained enough courage to go to the Centre and stare at the spot where it happened – as the counsellor once suggested – is a clear indication that she is far from healed.

  Nana Moira is in the kitchen humming to herself and making a show of washing the dishes that Rachel left in the sink since yesterday. She makes them clink and clank together so that Rachel can hear that she is doing work Rachel should have done instead of just lazing around at home for the whole day.

  These are sounds that make Rachel feel safe and content. She looks at Blue. He is fast asleep on the bed next to his mama after a whole day of fooling around.

  The following day life returns to normal. It is Saturday. Rachel packs peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and goes busking at the farmers’ market for the first time in almost four years. She wants to leave Blue with Nana Moira, but he refuses. He wants to go to town with his mama. She straps him in his car seat and drives her beat-up Ford Escort to the parking lot of the Market-on-State Mall on East State Street.

  The old farmers welcome her back. “Where’s the bread?” one asks. She does not tell him that although it is pawpaw season there won’t be any bread. To bake it she would have to go to the one place she dreads most, and she is not ready for that yet.

  Some of the stalls are staffed by new faces. But it is comforting to her that all the produce and products for sale are the familiar ones. It is like returning home after a long journey.

  Her spot is now occupied by another busker, a man whose main attraction is yelling and cussing and growling about all the troubles he has seen, while playing a tuneless banjo. The only spot that Rachel can find is further away from the stalls, and she doubts if she will make any money here. Nevertheless she sets up her music stand with a book of lyrics on it, opens her guitar case, and then starts playing.

  Rachel sings about the old days when neighbours looked out for one another. If a neighbour saw anyone’s child cussing and smoking she gave him a hiding without minding what anyone else would say. When the parents of the culprit returned from work they thanked the neighbour for spanking their kid. Today it is different. You spank anyone’s child you go to jail. She invites the small crowd that is beginning to build to join her in the chorus: “I’m a mama from the hills I’ll spank any kid that crosses my way”. She directs this to the kids in the audience and pretends to go after them. They giggle and pretend to run away, and then return to join in the chorus.

  This is one of the songs she has been writing since Rain gave her the green guitar. Not that she has any personal experience of the days when any adult could go around spanking other people’s kids – or even their own! These are stories that she hears from Nana Moira; she is always lamenting how the world has changed for the worst with “young-uns” disrespecting their elders because they know nobody’s going to discipline them for fear of the law.

  A severely dressed schoolmarmish woman in the audience takes exception to the song.

  “You’re teaching kids that violence is a good thing,” she says.

  “All in jest, ma’am, all in jest,” says Rachel. “I have one of my own and no one will touch him. Not even me or my grandma.”

  At this she points at Blue, who is sitting near the guitar case playing with the coins that are beginning to accumulate. A loud-mouthed member of the audience advises the schoolmarm to get a life and appreciate a joke. The rest of the audience laugh at her as she walks away haughtily.

  Rachel is not pleased about this. She had no intention of alienating anyone.

  It is fall and the weather is good. The farmers’ market meets twice a week: on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Rachel has established a following and every week she comes with new songs. They are really more like the ballads she heard Rain and Granny Sue sing. Whereas theirs were a capella, she backs hers with the guitar and uses her nasally voice
for comic effect. She discovers that she has talent in writing tall-tale lyrics, the same kind she heard Thos Burnett tell, which is also the same kind she remembers her pops telling. Her stories rhyme and leave people in stitches. She is a favourite with the children, and after every session she returns home with good money. It was a blessing that her old spot was taken because where she plays now is a more open space between rows of parked cars away from the stalls. Her audiences are not stray people who discover her by chance while shopping for zucchini or honey, and then drop some change or a single in her guitar case. They are there for her funny songs.

  Rachel has become a hit at the farmers’ market; she wants to spread her wings.

  In the meantime Genesis is giving Nana Moira a headache. He arrives one day at the Centre and announces that he and his son have seen a lawyer: Jason wants visitation rights.

  “How’s he gonna get them in Michigan?” asks Nana Moira.

  “He’ll be back one day. Michigan ain’t the end of the world. He’s got to see his son.”

  “And you think a lawyer will do it for you? You gotta win Rachel over and not threaten her with lawyers.”

  Genesis says it is not a threat. Soon Rachel will receive court process from Mr Troy.

  “I told you, Genesis, you go to the law you lose me.”

  “I lost you right from the start, Nana Moira. You done nothing to help me and my boy. You seen me come here and cry like a baby and you done nothing. Instead you joined the rape chorus.”

  Nana Moira says she has always been in Genesis’ corner because she believes in family. Even after she had been to the counsellor and become convinced that indeed Jason did rape Rachel she still believed that Blue shouldn’t be deprived of a father and family because of it. But if Genesis and his son take her granddaughter to court she will fight them.

  “You’ll have me to deal with,” she says.

  “You done nothing for us, Moira Boucher. I even got you eighty dozen eggs and you done nothing.” Obviously Genesis is not listening to what Nana Moira is saying.